Galane to expand resource base

Galane Gold Limited has announced completion of its new five-year plan which will guide its short-term goals and long-term strategy.

Galane Gold - a gold producer which operates through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Galane Gold Mines Ltd - is the sole shareholder of Mupane Gold Mine situated in the north eastern part of Botswana.

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In a management’s discussion and analysis for the three years and nine months ended September 30, 2014 released earlier this week, the company says this is part of its vision to carry out improvements and exploration plan in Botswana, with a focus on the optimisation of the mining operations and expansion of the resource base.

The company through its various pits would optimise mining operations by redesigning some of its pits and using ore already mined at other pits.

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Some of the resources that the gold mining company want to utilise are the Tau Underground with a reported measured and indicated resource of 128.6 thousand ounces of gold.

The development of the Tau underground mining, the company says, will ensure it meets the target of commencing stoping in third quarter of 2015. “The development will in some instances be through ore and it is expected that Tau will provide ore to the plant between now and the commencement of stoping,” the company disclosed.

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Other resource that Galane will utilise is the Golden Eagle pit which - the company says - due to the continued weakness of gold price; it has decided to redesign the pit shell based on the $1,000 gold price.

“Mining on the current $1,400 pit shell will be stopped in Q4 2014 when we reach 935 meter mining level,” the management said, further adding that after reaching that level mining will be stopped for a period of roughly three months while operations to determine and the new pit design will be underway.

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As another method of optimising operations and utilisation of the available resources, Galane Gold has undertook to reclaim ore left behind in the access roads on the side of Tholo pit, which will be mined during the first quarter of 2015. Mining of the original pit has been completed at Tholo.

Due to fluctuating gold prices, the company has made it clear that the plan it intends to carry is subject to change and the company will adopt the appropriate plan for the prevailing gold price environment.

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In the third quarter of 2014, Galane Gold through its Mupane Property subsidiary received mixed fortunes which saw processing and production coming to a halt following the failure of the SAG mill motor which occurred in May and was only resolved at the end of August.

As a result of machinery failure, the company says mill production from the end of May was at approximately 70% of planned levels. The failure also affected gold production at Mupane in the third quarter with 8,206 ounces produced compared to 9,941 ounces in the corresponding period of the previous year.

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For the three month period ending September 30, 2014, Galane Gold generated $9.5 million in revenue arising from the sale of 7’479 ounces of gold plus incidental silver at an average combined price of $1,265 per ounce and garnered profit from mining operations of $1.0 million.

The above shows decline in revenue created in the third quarter of the year when compared with the third quarter of 2013 when the company generated $13.8 million in revenue. The Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) quoted gold mines operator created that revenue from the sale of 10,310 ounces of gold plus incidental silver at an average price of $1,343 per ounce and a loss from mining operations of $1.1 million.